I have always had a lot of sympathy for Mary.  She certainly experienced terrible emotional trauma just at the time when she was entering her teens and could have expected  a royal marriage and personal power.  The most awful thing for her, no doubt, was the change in Henry from proud father who used to show her off to ambassadors to the vindictive king who took away from Mary her status, her mother and her income.

Mary wasn't cruel and vindictive when she came to the throne – she was magnanimous to her enemies and tried persuasion to get people back to catholicism.  It was only later, when that failed, she chose other methods.  How much she was influenced by the Spanish marriage is difficult to say.  After all it was the Spanish who invented the Inquisition and had “form” for the torture and execution by burning of “heretics” in great numbers.

One of the saddest relics of Mary is her prayer book, where the pages of prayers for women in childbirth are blotted with her tears.

I do not know MAry very well, but from what I know, she was a devious princess, as she was her entire life.. I truely only believe that she was in denial as queen, for she could not produce a single child, which at that point left her heart broken. I believe she would have settled for a daughter by that point. If i were her, I would have. So as a teenager, she was a victim of abuse by her father, and transitioning through mothers, must have been hard for her. Especially since she had a sister born from a, a , well, a negative person. But, all in all, MAry deserved better than what she recieved.

I'm always thinking to Mary as the child of a bad divorce: she grew up between doting parents who she thought loved each other, then her father left, treating her as a bastard and allowing his wife to treat her bad. I'm convinced that she suffered a lot when Katherine Howard entered her life: just imagine, a stepmother younger than her and a trophy wife who she probably found dumb. She probably thought that it was unfair: that girl was less intelligent and educated than her, less high born than her and more carefree than her, but her father loved that girl more than her. Children who experience this often destry themselves in a way or the other, at any moment. they are depressed,  suffer from a lack of self confidence and try to be loved: exactly the relation of Mary with Philip of Spain or the Catholic faction.

I have always felt so much sympathy for Mary (and in fact one of the things that I love most about “The Tudors” is that for all their historical inaccuracies, they portray Mary in a more sympathetic light). I think that she was simply the product of the environment she was raised in. 

It has also been shown that at the beginning of her reign, when she had the full support of the English people, she could be kind and gracious (as shown by her delay in signing Jane Grey’s death warrant), however towards the end of her reign, once she had lost that support and she could not produce an heir, she turned into a very cruel woman. But I think she probably also got that behavious from her father a bit as well. Henry could be the most generous man in the world when things where going his way, but the moment the tide turned against him he lashed out at everyone around him. If I’m not mistaken Elizabeth also had a mighty temper when provoked as well. Maybe it was more of a case of ‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’?

Sharon said:

The Queen’s compassionate attitude led Jane Dormer to say bitterly, “From the time of her Mother’s trouble, this Queen had daily use of patience and few days of content…”

 

 As Kim noted above, this was displayed well in The Tudors. For all of the series’ inaccuracies, they got this right.

“I certainly feel they destroyed a beautiful girl.”

This.

I think that possibly many of Mary's problems came from wanting to be loved.   Her mother was taken away from her, and her father ignored her, both having an understandably significant negative impact on her life.   After her father's death, she was constantly pressured by her brother to give up Catholicism, which she refused to do, driving a wedge between them.  Her husband couldn't stand her, and she never had a baby to love her unconditionally.  The support of the people mattered to her, and when she lost it, she began the burnings.  I also read somewhere that she substituted religion for love, and her fanatical devotion to the pope () was an outlet for her personal unhappiness.  

As a high school student I used to think Mary was a villain. But after getting 'obsessed' with the Tudor world of late. My opinion has changed. Through watching The Tudors, Lady Jane , reading brief bits about her in biographies and her wikipedia article I am beginning to think especially by the time she died she was suffering from a mental illness. In fact, I would say the moment she became Queen was the moment the illness began to take over Mary. She was torn in so many directions and really didn't know what was the right thing to do with so many people in her ears. I really feel sorry for her, she wanted to do what was right, but had no idea what that really was.